This last Summer, my wife and I listed to much of the audio version of Reviving Ophelia. Being published in 1996, the material is dated as far as social media and mobile device usage in 2017. The depth and understanding of adolescent girls, their life experiences and how they handled them is so worth listening to.

Why are adolescent girls prone to depression, eating disorders, addictions and suicide attempts than ever before? Mary Pipher believes adolescence is an especially precarious time for girls, a time when the fearless, outgoing child is replaced by an unhappy and insecure teenager. Her view is that for the most part it is our look-obsessed, media-saturated, ‘girl-poisoning’ culture – and not parents – which is to blame. Despite the advances of feminism, escalating levels of sexism and violence cause girls to stifle their creative spirit and natural impulses, which, ultimately, destroys their self-esteem. Yet it is often their families that are blamed. Here, for the first time, are the girls unmuted voices. By laying bare their harsh day-to-day reality, Reviving Ophelia offers parents compassion, strength and strategies with which to revive these Ophelias’ lost sense of self.

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Last week, during a long overdue call with a friend, he mentioned he had just attended a Men’s conference that had great impact on him. The theme of his talks was ‘Follow Me’ including readings from Luke’s Gospel, the speaker was Mike Raiter.

The talks from Mike were indeed good, the take away’s from the Panels were helpful, too. Terrific reminders to me to stay committed to developing deep relationships, being intention about creating friendships, being vulnerable and accountable, sharing real challenges, praying together.

Last month, I had the honor to hear Immaculée speak at the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit. There were many wonderful speakers but after listening to her, I had to own her book.

Immaculée spoke about forgiving the vary people that killed her family during the genocide in Rwanda, how God is real and the power of prayer.

After reading Left to Tell, I’ve discovered many areas in my life I can work on; my faith, the importance of forgiveness, my prayer life and in particular asking for God’s direction and His purpose for my life.

I highly recommend reading Left to Tell.

Left To Tell

Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust

Immaculee Ilibagiza grew up in a country she loved, surrounded by a family she cherished. But in 1994 her idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Immaculee’s family was brutally murdered during a killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans.

Incredibly, Immaculee survived the slaughter. For 91 days, she and seven other women huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor while hundreds of machete-wielding killers hunted for them. It was during those endless hours of unspeakable terror that Immaculee discovered the power of prayer, eventually shedding her fear of death and forging a profound and lasting relationship with God. She emerged from her bathroom hideout having discovered the meaning of truly unconditional love-a love so strong she was able seek out and forgive her family’s killers. The triumphant story of this remarkable young woman’s journey through the darkness of genocide will inspire anyone whose life has been touched by fear, suffering, and loss.

About Left To Tell

Immaculee shares her miraculous story of how she survived during the Rwanda genocide in 1994 when she and seven other women huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor’s house for 91 days! In this captivating and inspiring book, Immacuee shows us how to embrace the power of prayer, forge a profound and lasting relationship with God, and discover the importance of forgiveness and the meaning of truly unconditional love and understanding—through our darkest hours.

Recently, on a long drive home after dropping my Son off at camp, I listened to several Ted Talk summaries on Ted Radio Hour, followed by a series of 6 Podcasts by Andy Stanley titled “Who needs God?”

The “accepting rejection” Ted talk was helping in thinking about rejection differently, from a perspective of opportunity rather than anything else. The “changing habits” Ted Talk was a good reminder and an offer of hope, I’m two weeks into putting my keys and wallet in the same place each time I return home, I’m a work in progress.

RE: Who needs God? This is just a great series of podcasts by Andy Stanley, a terrific follow-up to several self-help Ted Talks.

Yesterday (7/1/2017), I watched as the story broke about the death of Bianca Roberson, in what is being called a case of “road rage”, today, David Desper is charged with murder.

So many times over the years, I too, have participated in what could only be defined as “road rage.” One time, a convertible sports car aggressively cut me off as I was driving into New York City on the 59th street bridge, initially ignoring him, then, as I was coming off the bridge, I noticed the guy in convertible, I had the opportunity to repay the favor, which I did, cutting him off aggressively. This infuriated the man and he started driving beside me erratically. Finally, near Central Park, he began banging on my closed window, demanding to talk. Ignoring him didn’t work, I finally held of my “bag” phone (this was a while ago) and asked if I should call the police to help resolve, he then went speeding off. As I think about Bianca, this could have been me, the victim, however, I could have also caused the guy in the convertible to be killed by my behavior, quickly making me the victimizer.

With Ms. Roberson and whomever killed her; Ms. Roberson’s life ended prematurely, her family and friends broken and for the person that pulled the trigger, a life upended, also a family and friends broken. This blog post isn’t about passing judgement on either party but rather a reminder to myself not to let the little things bother me which I so often do.

I am reminded of Mark 12:28-31 (NIV) where Jesus explains what the greatest commandment in the bible is, followed by the second.

“The Greatest Commandment

28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[a]31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] There is no commandment greater than these.””

It’s my hope and prayer that the next time I believe I’m being treated unfairly or misunderstood that I remember these verses and love God first and love others as myself, paving the way to increase God, decreasing myself, staying in the present, creating the opportunity to have a positive impact on others instead of a negative one.

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Who needs God? Perhaps nobody. Perhaps everybody. Perhaps we should talk about it.Listened to this series of talks by Andy Stanley on a run last week. Great listening.

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Who Needs God, Part One – Atheist 2.0

Americans are migrating away from religion, particularly Christianity, at an unprecedented rate. Once upon a time, Americans believed religion offered solutions. Today, religion is viewed by many as the problem.

Typically, people who don’t believe in God don’t believe in a particular version of God. But what if they have the wrong version? What if you have the wrong version? If you’ve walked away from faith or religion, it could be that your version of god

If the Bible is the foundation of the Christian faith, then as the Bible goes, so goes the legitimacy of Christianity. But what if the Bible shouldn’t hold that much weight in the debate? In this episode, Andy explains that Christianity doesn’t exist be

It’s easy to get caught between doubt and despair when we’ve always assumed God to be something he’s not. If God has lost his appeal because we’ve mixed him up with a gaggle of gods that don’t exist, then how can we know what God is really like?

We all want to be masters of our own destinies. We all want to feel in control of our lives. The idea of autonomy is attractive; it makes life feel ordered and predictable. One of the biggest barriers to belief in God’s existence is that we don’t want

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Yesterday, I was challenge when a friend explained how he talks with people in the deli line that he doesn’t know, sometimes sharing about the pain in his life. The chat reminded me of a podcast “Don’t Waste Your Pain” by Rick Warren. The chat with my friend and a reread of this post is a good reminder to me to not waste my pain.

Pastor Rick finished the talk with these words”

“Don’t waste your pain. If you hide it and hold it back, it doesn’t do any good. But if you’re honest with God and yourself and with other people, God can use the thing you hate the most in your life, that you’re most disappointed by, and that you wish had never happened. God says, “You can’t change what happened to you. But I can use it for your benefit and for my purposes. When you’re willing to share your brokenness, I can use it to help other people.””

Don’t Waste Your Pain

BY RICK WARREN — SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

“He comforts us when we are in trouble, so that we can share that same comfort with others in trouble. We share in the terrible sufferings of Christ, but also in the wonderful comfort he gives.” (2 Corinthians 1:4-5 CEV)

Your greatest ministry will flow out of your pain — not out of your strengths or your talents but out of the painful experiences of your life. It is your weaknesses that help other people in their need, not your strengths.

A great example of this is the apostle Paul. In 2 Corinthians 1, Paul says that he was in a time of his life when he was so discouraged that he was ready to kick the bucket. He despaired of life itself. He was ready to give up on life. He was ready to crawl in a corner and die. And Paul was probably the greatest Christian who ever lived except for Jesus!

But Paul was able to say this in 2 Corinthians 1:2-5: “I pray that God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ will be kind to you and will bless you with peace! Praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! The Father is a merciful God, who always gives us comfort. He comforts us when we are in trouble, so that we can share that same comfort with others in trouble. We share in the terrible sufferings of Christ, but also in the wonderful comfort he gives” (CEV).

Who can be more sympathetic than somebody who has already been through what another person is going through right now? Who can better help the parent of a special needs child than a parent who raised a special needs child? Who can better help somebody going through a bankruptcy than somebody who has gone through it before? Who can better help somebody experiencing the heartbreak of divorce than somebody who remembers how terrible it felt? Who can better help somebody who’s been abused or molested than somebody who has been abused or molested?

Don’t waste your pain. If you hide it and hold it back, it doesn’t do any good. But if you’re honest with God and yourself and with other people, God can use the thing you hate the most in your life, that you’re most disappointed by, and that you wish had never happened. God says, “You can’t change what happened to you. But I can use it for your benefit and for my purposes. When you’re willing to share your brokenness, I can use it to help other people.”

Talk It Over

What is the painful experience in your life that you want God to use for good in someone else’s life?

Who do you need to forgive so that you can move on from your pain and release it for God to use in ministry?

Who do you think you can share your experience with so that they can receive God’s comfort?

Sometime in the early 90’s, I began attending Redeemer Presbyterian Church. I believe I went the first time when a friend from my home town was visiting New York City. In ’94, I was married, my wife was later baptized at Redeemer. Only recently, I finally discarded the boxes of cassette tapes with my favorite Tim Keller sermons (thankfully most of them are now online, many free).

While I now attend church on Long Island, my family does manage to visit Redeemer a few times each year. In between visits, I truly value reading Tim Keller’s tweets. Each a little nugget that weaves nicely into where I’m at on my journey as a Christ Follower in progress. I retweet the ones I want to be able to refer back to at a later date.

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In September 2013, a man in Hong Kong explained to me that his companies research (link below) showed that engaging with the bible at least 4 times per week could change peoples lives. They built a free mobile app called GoTandem to help facilitate their findings. I downloaded the app the evening after we met and have been using it ever since. When you start, the app has a brief survey that then enables bible verses to be custom tailored. I’ve retaken taken the survey a couple times to adjust the bible verses to my circumstances. Below are my favorite bible verses from March 2017.

Details about the research:

“The Power of 4 Effect A key discovery from the CBE research is that the life of someone who engages scripture 4 or more times a week looks radically different from the life of someone who does not. In fact, the lives of Christians who do not engage the Bible most days of the week are statistically the same as the lives of non-believers.” – Link for more details about research

My March 2017 favorite bible verses.

Body and Soul

Use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. Romans 6:13

Revenge Recipe

Never pay back evil with more evil. Romans 12:17

Trouble Times Fifty Billion

Troubles multiply for those who chase after other gods. Psalm 16:4

Fire Tongue

The tongue is a flame of fire…a whole world of wickedness…It can set your whole life on fire. James 3:6

Take Up Your Cross

“If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.” Mark 8:34

Concerned With the Heart

“Anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Matthew 5:28

Don’t be a Slave

Even though I am allowed to do anything, I must not become a slave to anything. 1 Corinthians 6:12

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The posts on this blog are mostly articles, books, videos, bible verses, sermons, reflections from a conversation, etc. that someone was kind enough to suggest I read, listen to or view. This is one of those such articles. In this case, a friends wife thought we both might find this article from Jon Bloom helpful. She was so right, terrific article. I’m very grateful for friends like this, I need all the help and direction I can get.

This principle seems to hold true in nearly every area of life: The most satisfying joys we experience are realized mainly through adversity and struggle, while poor, unhealthy, thin joys can be had without much effort. Fulfilling joys usually require strenuous pursuit.

Another similar principle also seems to be true: When the pursuit of a fulfilling joy moves from an inspiring idea to actually having to work hard for it, the reward suddenly diminishes in appeal. Therefore, we must often strenuously pursue a fulfilling joy when we don’t feel like it.

I find both principles are often true when it comes to thanking God. A heart full of thanksgiving experiences profound joy. But cultivating a thankful heart is hard work — work we often don’t feel like doing.

But God knows this about us, and his many commands that we “magnify him with thanksgiving” (Psalm 69:30), “come into his presence with thanksgiving” (Psalm 95:2), “sing to [him] with thanksgiving” (Psalm 147:7), pray “with thanksgiving” (Philippians 4:6), eat “with thanksgiving” (1 Timothy 4:3), indeed, “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18) are not intended as guilt-ridden reminders of how ungrateful we are. Rather, these commands are prescriptions written by the Good Physician to help us escape from chronic bouts of discouragement.

Why Are We Discouraged?

Discouragement is, by definition, a deficit of courage.

Biblical courage is the ability to face uncertainty, adversity, danger, or suffering with faith-fueled hope that God will keep his word to us, come what may. Paul went so far as to say that since “all the promises of God find their Yes in [Christ],” especially the resurrection, we should “always [be] of good courage” (2 Corinthians 1:20; 5:6).

But we are not always of good courage. Why? Because unbelief in the promises of God dis-courages us. This is the focus of all Satan’s massive, multifarious strategies: to dis-courage us through dis-belief in God’s promises. His strategies are disorientingly sophisticated, but his goal is simple: to discourage Christians. Discouraged Christians are immobilized threats. They are diffused gospel bombs. They are silenced evangelists whose faith-anemia can be contagious.

Is it really any surprise that we find discouragement a chronic problem? Daily placed before our eyes, spoken into our ears, and breaking our hearts are reasons to be discouraged — and our indwelling sin is quick to believe them.

That is precisely why right after Paul says, “we are always of good courage” (2 Corinthians 5:6), he says, “for we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Worldly perceptions will tend to sap our courage. But faith perceives a reality so hopeful that even death itself cannot quench the resulting courage.

Thanksgiving and Courage

What does this have to do with thanksgiving? Nothing is as en-couraging as seeing God’s abounding grace (2 Corinthians 9:8), and gratitude is what we feel when we see it (2 Corinthians 1:11).

But what we need to understand is that biblical thanksgiving is not merely our grateful response to a perceived grace received from God; it is a means to perceiving that grace. Biblical thanksgiving is not merely a command to be obeyed; it is a call to see beyond our normal perceptions to hundreds of graces we would otherwise miss due to our sin-induced myopia. And it is a call to see future graces in God’s promises so certain that we can thank God for them now.

That’s why God commands us so often in the Bible to give thanks. The commands prompt us to ask, “What do I have to be grateful for?” That question alone can stop the train of our thoughts from derailing into discouragement, while it draws us back on the track of faith. It forces us to answer, and in answering, we start seeing graces. So, the obedient act of giving God thanks actually results in our feeling grateful to God. The commands are in and of themselves gracious.

God intends for this practice of thanksgiving to become a gracious habit. The more habitual thanksgiving becomes, the more gratitude we will feel. We will find that to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18) is not an impossible ideal, but an increasingly satisfying joy, and a potent, counterintuitive antidote to discouragement.

The Best Things Are Hard to Learn

Thanksgiving is a counterintuitive antidote to discouragement because when we feel discouraged, we don’t feel like giving thanks. That’s why we must remember those two common principles: 1) fulfilling joys usually require strenuous pursuit, and therefore, 2) we often don’t feel like pursuing the things we need most. This experience is “common to man” (1 Corinthians 10:13). When we experience it, we shouldn’t be surprised as if something strange were happening to us (1 Peter 4:12).

Experiencing the joy of gratitude requires the hard work of learning the habit of thanksgiving through daily practice. It’s difficult to learn because of our deeply ingrained habits of seeing the world through self-centered lenses. And because Satan works hard to distract us with all sorts of discouraging things.

But there is abounding grace available to help us see grace (2 Corinthians 9:8). That’s why there is an abundance of commands for us to give thanks! These commands are a grace, for they call forth in us what they demand of us.

Mine the Bible for the “thanks” and “thanksgiving” commands, and practice them — especially when you don’t feel like it. That’s likely when you need them the most. And “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Fight discouragement with thanksgiving. Fight hard! God will supply the strength you need (1 Peter 4:11; Philippians 4:19).

As you obey, you will begin to see and savor the grace you missed before.